Vernor Vinge - A Fire Upon the Deep

"About thirty hours. We're more than sixty light-years out from Harmonious Repose. We're doing okay, except that now everyone in creation seems to be chasing us."

The dream. His free hand clamped hard on Ravna's arm. "The Skroderiders, where are they?" Not on board, pray the Fleet.

"W-what's left of Greenstalk is in the other surgeon. Blueshell is — "

Why has he let me live? Pham's eyes roved the room. They were in a utility cabin. Any weapons were at least twenty meters away. Hm. More important than guns: get command console privileges with the OOB… if it was not already too late. He pushed out of the surgeon and drifted out of the room.

Ravna followed. "Take it easy, Pham. You just came out of a surgeon."

"What have they said about the shoot-out?"

"Poor Greenstalk's not in a position to say anything, Pham. Blueshell says pretty much what you did: Greenstalk was grabbed by the rogue Riders, forced to lure you two into a trap."

"Hmhm, hmhm," Pham strove for a noncommittal tone. So maybe there was a chance; maybe Blueshell was not yet perverted. He continued his one-handed progress up the ship's axis corridor. A minute later he was on the bridge, Ravna tagging behind.

"Pham. What's the matter? There's a lot we have to decide, but — "

How right you are. He dived onto the command deck, and made for the command console. "Ship. Do you recognize my voice?"

Ravna began, "Pham, What's this — "

"Yes, sir."

" — all about?"

"Command privileges," he said. Capabilities granted while the Riders were ashore. Would they still be in place?

"Granted."

The Skroderiders had had thirty hours to plan their defense. This was all too easy, too easy. "Suspend command privileges for the Skroderiders. Isolate them."

"Yes, sir," came the ship's reply. Liar! But what more could he do? The sweep toward panic crested, and suddenly he felt very cool. He was Qeng Ho

… and he was also godshatter.

Both Riders were in the same cabin, Greenstalk in the other copy of the ship's surgeon. Pham opened a window on the room. Blueshell sat on a wall beside the surgeon. He looked wilted, as when they heard about Sjandra Kei. He angled his fronds at the video pickup. "Sir Pham. The ship tells me you've suspended our privileges?"

"What is going on, Pham?" Ravna had dug a foot into the floor, and stood glaring at him.

Pham ignored both questions. "How is Greenstalk doing?" he said.

The fronds turned away, seemed to become even more limp. "She lives… I thank you, Sir Pham. It took great skill to do what you did. Considering everything, I could not have asked for more."

What did I do? He remembered firing on Greenstalk. Had he pulled his aim? He looked inside the surgeon. This was quite different from the human configuration: This one was mostly water-filled, with turbulent aeration along the patient's fronds. Asleep (?), Greenstalk looked frailer than he remembered, her fronds waving randomly in the water. Some were nicked, but her body seemed whole. His eyes traveled downwards toward the base of the stalk, where a Rider is normally attached to its skrode. The stump ended in a cloud of surgical tubing. And Pham remembered the last instant of the firefight, blasting the skrode out from under Greenstalk. What is a Rider like without anything to ride?

He pulled his eyes away from the wreckage. "I've deleted your command privileges because I don't trust you." My former friend, tool of my enemy.

Blueshell didn't answer. After a moment Ravna spoke. "Pham. Without Blueshell, I'd never have gotten you out of that habitat. Even then — we were stuck in the middle of the RIP system. The shepherd satellite was screaming for our blood; they had figured out we were human. The Aprahanti were trying to break harbor and come down on us. Without Blueshell, we'd never have convinced local security to let us go ultra — we'd probably have been blown away the second we cleared the ring plane. We'd all be dead now, Pham."

"Don't you know what happened down there?"

Some of the indignation left Ravna's face. "Yes. But understand about skrodes. They are a mechanical contrivance. It's easy enough to disconnect the cyber part from the mechanical linkages. These guys were controlling the wheels, and aiming the gun."

Hmm. On the window behind Ravna, he could see Blueshell standing with his fronds motionless, not rushing to agree. Triumphant? "That doesn't explain Greenstalk's sucking us in to the trap." He raised a hand. "Yeah, I know, she was bludgeoned into doing it. Only problem, Ravna, she had no hesitation. She was enthusiastic, bubbly." He stared over the woman's shoulder. "She was under no compulsion, didn't you tell me that, Blueshell."

A long pause. Finally, "Yes, Sir Pham."

Ravna turned, drifting back so she could see both of them. "But, but

… it's still absurd. Greenstalk has been with us from the beginning. A thousand times she could have destroyed the ship — or gotten word to the outside. Why chance this stupid ambush?"

"Yes. Why didn't they betray us before…" Up until she asked the question, Pham had not known. He knew the facts, but had no coherent theory to hang them on. Now it all came together: the ambush, his dreams in the surgeon, even the paradoxes. "Maybe she wasn't a traitor, before. We really did escape from Relay without pursuit, without anyone knowing of us, much less our exact destination. Certainly no one expected humans to show up at Harmonious Repose." He paused, trying to get it all together. The ambush, "The ambush, it wasn't stupid — but it was completely ad hoc. The enemy had no back up. Their weapons were dumb, simple things — " insight "— why, I'll bet if you look at the wreckage of Greenstalk's skrode you'll find her beam gun was some sort of cutter tool. And the only sensor on the claymore mine was a motion detector: it had some civil use. All the gadgets were pulled together on very short notice by people who had not been expecting a fight. No, our enemy was very surprised by our appearance."

"You think the Aprahanti could — "

"Not the Aprahanti. From what you said, they didn't break moorage till after the gunfight, when the Rider moon started screaming about us. Whoever's behind this is independent of the Butterflies, and must be spread in very small numbers across many star systems — a vast set of tripwires, listening for things of interest. They noticed us, and weak as their outpost was they tried to grab our ship. Only when we were getting away did they advertise us. One way or another, they didn't want us to get away." He jerked a hand at the ultratrace window. "If I read that right, we've got more than five hundred ships on our tail."

Ravna's eyes flicked to the display and back. Her voice was abstracted, "Yes. That's part of the main Aprahanti fleet and… "

"There will be lots more, only they won't all be Butterflies."

"… what are you saying then? Why would Skroderiders wish us ill? A conspiracy is senseless. They've never had a nation state, much less an interstellar empire."

Pham nodded. "Just peaceful settlements — like that shepherd moon -in polyspecific civilizations all across the Beyond." His voice softened. "No, Rav, the Skroderiders are not the real enemy here… it's the thing behind them. The Straumli Perversion."

Incredulous silence, but he noticed how tightly Blueshell held his fronds now. That one knew.

"It's the only explanation, Ravna. Greenstalk really was our friend, and loyal. My guess is that only a small minority of the Riders are under the Perversion's control. When Greenstalk fell in with them she was converted too."

"T-that's impossible! This is the Middle of the Beyond, Pham. Greenstalk had courage, stubbornness. No brainwashing could have changed her so quickly." A frightened desperation had come into her eyes. One explanation or another, some terrible thing must be true.